Project XO

NMC, in collaboration with FENYCE Workspace (Michele Panegrossi & Luca Biada) are creating a new participatory dance production using cutting-edge robotics technology to explore themes of time, memory and power. Following a initial period of research and development we have built an upper body exoskeleton suit prototype, powered by soft air muscles, that can be worn by members of the public and programmed to execute precise choreography.

In an intimate, 3-way interaction between a single dancer, a participant and the suit, the performance poses ethical questions of power, control and empathy in a technology-driven world. This will be a journey for all senses, constructing a powerfully immersive environment of movement, sound, light and visuals; fragments of narratives play out on the body of the person wearing the suit, placing them inside an experience which is at once both theirs and not theirs. How are memories held in motion? Submitting themselves to the control of the suit, audience members are empowered by its ability while also haunted by the ambiguous ‘creator’ behind its movement.

Currently in development with the support of Middlesex University London